MORE NEWS, 8-11 (WIND AT SEA; U.S. EMISSIONS TRADING MARKET FACTS; ANOTHER CLIMATE CHANGE DENIER’S BAD SCIENCE)

WIND AT SEA
Offshore wind could be next wave for United States
Scott Malone (w/Alan Elsner), July 28, 2009 (Reuters)

"The Cape Cod resort area, famous for sandy beaches and centuries-old fishing villages, could in the next few years claim a new title of home to the United States' first offshore wind farm.

"The United States has experienced a surge in investment in wind power over the past four years, more than tripling its ability to turn wind into electricity. But construction has been entirely on land and largely in America's rural midsection -- leaving open the costly challenge of how to transmit power to the densely populated coasts where it is most needed."

Cape Wind has been held up since 2001 because of this desecration of the seaside vista. (click to enlarge)

"That could be changing. Developers have proposed wind farms off Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Delaware and New Jersey to meet the electricity needs of the East Coast…The Cape Wind project in 2001 became the country's first major proposed offshore wind farm. Its developers aim to construct 130 towers, which will tower 440 feet (134 metres) above the surface of the Nantucket Sound.

"To supporters, Cape Wind represents Massachusetts' chance to be a leader in clean energy. It would generate 420 megawatts of power, enough for 336,000 typical American homes…Opponents, including Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy, who has a home on the Cape, say the towers, 5 miles (8 km) from shore, would be a risk to navigation and hurt tourism."

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"Cape Wind's developers need one last major regulatory approval, from the U.S. Department of the Interior. Should they get it, they expect to have the project up and running in two years, which will require finding more than $1 billion…Jim Gordon, Cape Wind chief executive, said he believes investors will come through…

"Momentum is on wind's side. Last year developers invested more than $17 billion in new U.S. wind farms… But onshore wind must deal with the cost and complexity of building transmission lines from Texas, Minnesota and other leading wind producing states to demand centers…Deepwater Wind, which is working on $1.5 billion of projects off Rhode Island…backed by hedge fund DE Shaw and wind developer First Wind, plans its turbines 15 miles (24.14 km) offshore, which would make them practically invisible from the coast…Other developers are planning wind farms in the Gulf of Mexico off Texas and in the inland Great Lakes…"


U.S. EMISSIONS TRADING MARKET FACTS
Factbox – U.S. carbon markets and projects
Peter Henderson and Ed Stoddard, August 7, 2009 (Reuters)

"…Following are some facts and figures about America's emerging carbon markets and projects [and its proposed cap&trade legislation]…

…Under a government regulated carbon "cap and trade" system, industries or companies would face caps on how much greenhouse gas they could emit but could exceed them by buying credits from firms that pollute less than their cap or from projects that sequester such gases. Europe has such a plan in place."

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"…Three regional North American groups are trading or in the process of creating carbon markets. The 10-state Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative in the Northeast is already auctioning credits; the 11-state-and-Canadian-province Western Climate Initiative plans to start trading in 2012; and the Midwestern Greenhouse Gas Reduction Accord, which joins six states and one Canadian province, is working on a plan…[A proposed national cap&trade plan] would halt regional markets in 2012.

…The fight to stop acid rain has been called the first major success story for cap-and-trade. The Clean Air Act as amended in 1990 allowed trading of emissions credits of acid-rain causing sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide."

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"…The global voluntary carbon market last year was worth $705 million, more than double its value in 2007…In anticipation of a U.S. market, many projects are in the pipeline: they range from converting cultivated fields to their natural state or reforesting land which could act as "carbon sinks" for emissions created elsewhere. Capping methane emissions from land dumps is among the more common of the mushrooming "offset projects."

…Some of these projects could, for example, see owners of woodlots and small forests in America earn income through reforestation efforts. Depending on the wording of the climate bill, they could be rewarded for "sustainable" practices such as allowing trees to grow longer before cutting them down."


ANOTHER CLIMATE CHANGE DENIER’S BAD SCIENCE
Factcheck: Contrarians Promote Study That Masks Warming Trend
July 30, 2009 (Union of Concerned Scientists)

"Climate contrarians are promoting a study published on July 23 in the Journal of Geophysical Research that they mistakenly claim overturns decades of scientific evidence that human activity is driving global warming. In fact, the study's mathematical methodology would obscure any long-term trend in global temperatures.

"...Influence of the Southern Oscillation on tropospheric temperature, by two authors from Australia and one from New Zealand, focuses on the difference between monthly average temperature…[but]…By focusing on year-to-year changes in monthly temperature, the study misses the long-term upward trend in global temperatures over many years.

"If the subject were baseball rather than climate science, it would be akin to treating a game in which the Yankees defeat the Red Sox 2-1 the same as one in which they win 4-3 or 10-9. Although the difference between the scores in each game is the same, the absolute run totals increase over time."

Peter Sinclair elucidates many of the same kinds of methodological flaws found in the new study. From greenman3610 via YouTube.

It's therefore no surprise that the Journal of Geophysical Research study confirms what scientists have long established—that the El Niño cycle in the Pacific is a major driver of natural climate variability for temperature. But it misses the role that human-induced warming has played in raising the baseline on which up-and-down natural cycles operate over the past several decades.

"RealClimate.org, a scientific community blog on climate topics highlighted a blog entry that recently examined the mathematical methods used in the paper, demonstrating that they can obscure nearly any long-term trend, even one much larger than observed global warming.

"The Journal of Geophysical Research likely will publish comment letters pointing out the study's flaws in a future issue, elucidating the disadvantages of using this mathematical method to examine climate trends. Regardless, we expect contrarian organizations and politicians to continue to cite this study long after the scientific community has moved on.